This book is full of polar opposites, black and white and light and dark that reveal the greyness of India and allows Adiga to create two Indias. With one of the most impressive characters that I have ever read Balram also has two sides that are used skilfully to reveal a story of a boy trying to mature alongside his country.
Honest and disturbing Balram is not a man I am in a hurry to meet yet probably already have but haven’t noticed because I am what Balram calls ‘asleep’; asleep to the darker sides that are visible even in the lightest of places and people. He, like the two Indias, is half this, half that and ultimately ‘half-baked’.
The reader is pulled around with him from his self-educated and insightful perspective and is shown the corruption and segregation that many Indians face as well as the opportunity and wealth they aspire to. Balram is able to see the people and the city for what they really are and yet he acknowledges his own hypocrisy in his desperation to fulfil the expectations of a man of his status.
A remarkable book with a fresh readability and overall cohesion that makes every page turn a moment for reflection of the two parallels being suggested in every sentence.
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